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Comparing Legal Professions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 December 2018
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- Review Essay
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- Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 1990
References
1 Richard Abel objects for good reasons to calling the approach a monopoly control rather than a market control framework, since the profession would constitute a cartel rather than a monopoly. However, monopoly control is the commonly used term, and for that reason I will use it. Howard Erlanger was an ideal editor, generous and helpful with his suggestions.Google Scholar
2 See also Peltzman, Sam, “Toward a More General Theory of Regulation,” 19 J. L & Econ. 211 (1976); and George Stigler, “The Theory of Economic Regulation,” 2 Bell J. Econ & Mgmt. Sci. 3 (1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Magali Sarfatti Larson, The Rise of Professionalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977) (“Larson, Rise of Professionalism”).Google Scholar
4 Id at xviii.Google Scholar
5 This sketchy history has been told in more detail. See Andrew Abbott, The System of Professions ch. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988) (“Abbott, System of Professions”); Gerald Geison, “Introduction,” in Gerald L. Geison, ed., Professions and Professional Ideologies in America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983) (“Geison, Professions”).Google Scholar
6 Geison, Professions; Terence Halliday, Beyond Monopoly (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) (“Halliday, Beyond Monopoly”); Thomas Haskell, The Authority of Experts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984). At the same time, the critical approach to professions by no means always excludes studies of expertise. Larson explores the “ideological hegemony” of the professions.Google Scholar
7 Richard L. Abel & Philip S. C. Lewis, Lawyers in society: Vol. 3, Comparative Theories (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) (“Abel & Lewis, Comparative Theories”).Google Scholar
8 Halliday, Beyond Monopoly. For a critique, see Abel & Lewis, “Putting Law Back Into the Sociology of Lawyers,” m Abel & Lewis, Comparative Theories 503.Google Scholar
9 See also Erlanger, Howard S., Chambliss, Elizabeth, & Melli, Marygold S., “Participation and Flexibility in Informal Processes: Cautions from the Divorce Context,” 21 Law & Soc'y Rev. 585 (1988). For a discussion of negotiation in Britain in personal injury cases, see Genn, Hazel, Hard Bargaining (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 Halliday, Beyond Monopoly 38–43.Google Scholar
11 See Terence C. Halliday, “Legal Professions and Politics: Neocorporatist Variations on the Pluralist Theme of Liberal Democracies,” and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, “Comparing Legal Professions: A State-centered Approach,” in Abel & Lewis, Comparative Theories.Google Scholar
12 Abbott, System of Professions 59–68.Google Scholar
13 Id. at 8.Google Scholar
14 Id. at 35–58.Google Scholar
15 M. Miles, “Eminent Practitioners: The New Visage of Country Attorneys c. 1750–1800,” in G. R. Rubin & David Sugarman, eds., Law, Economy and Society, 1750–1914: Essays in the History of English Law (Abingdon, Oxon.: Professional Books Ltd., 1984) (“Rubin & Sugarman, English Law”); Daniel Duman, The English and Colonial Bars in the Nineteenth Century (London: Croom Helm, 1983) (“Duman, English and Colonial Bars”); C. W. Brooks, Pettyfoggers and Vipers of the Commonwealth (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986) (“Brooks, Pettyfoggers”).Google Scholar
16 Daniel Duman, English and Colonial Bars; W. R. Prest, “Why the History of the Professions Is Not Written,”in Rubin & Sugarman, English Law.Google Scholar
17 Brooks, , Pettyfoggers 144, 266–67.Google Scholar
18 Id. at 264–66. On the early profession, see John H. Baker, The Legal Profession and the Common Law (London: Hambledon Press, 1986).Google Scholar
19 Study of the early English profession is rich. For a synthesis, see D. J. Ibbetson, “Common Lawyers and the Law Before the Civil War,” 8 Oxford J. Legal Stud. 142 (1988). For a recent study, see W. R. Prest, The Rise of the Barristers: A Social History of the English Bar, 1590–1640 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar
20 Abbott, System of Professions 248–49.Google Scholar
21 See also Abel, Richard L., “Comparative Sociology of Legal Professions,” in Abel & Lewis, Comparative Theories 97.Google Scholar
22 Abbott, System of Professions ch. 3.Google Scholar
23 Larson, Rise of professionalism 5–10, 136–58, 166–77 (cited in note 3).Google Scholar
24 In a synthetic article of breathtaking scope in volume 3, Abel discusses national differences while analyzing them as different strategies of attaining control over a market. Richard L. Abel, “Comparative Sociology of Legal Professions”in Abel & Lewis, Comparative Theories.Google Scholar
25 Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Women in Law (New York: Basic Books, 1981). See also K. Morello, The Invisible Bar (New York: Random House, 1986).Google Scholar
26 Abbott has done an extensive survey of occupations generally called professions in the United States and England and argues that they have not routinely developed many of the traits considered characteristic. Abbott, System of Professions 16–18.Google Scholar
27 Powell, Michael, “Developments in the Regulation of Lawyers: Competing Segments and Market, Client, and Government Controls.” 64 Soc. Forces 281 (Dec. 1985).Google Scholar
28 Abbott, System of Professions 143–76, 315–19.Google Scholar
29 Halliday, Beyond Monopoly 341–47 (cited in note 6).Google Scholar
30 Id.; Michael Powell, From Patrician to Professional Elite (New York: Russell Sage, 1989) (“Powell, Patrician”).Google Scholar
31 For a discussion of the slippage between membership and leadership in organizations, see Terry Moe, The organization of Interests (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).Google Scholar
32 Halliday, Beyond Monopoly 326–34.Google Scholar
33 Powell, Patrician ch. 4.Google Scholar
34 On the variety of ways professions can work with state policy, see Eliot Freidson, professional Powers ch. 10 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986) (“Freidson, Professional Powers”).Google Scholar
35 Moe, Terry, “Interests, Institutions and Positive Theory: The Politics of the NLRB,” 2 Stud. Am. Pol. Dev. 236 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
36 Dingwall, Robert & Fenn, Paul, “‘A Respectable Profession’: Sociological and Economic Perspectives on the Regulation of Professional Services,” 7 Int'l Rev. L. & Econ. 51 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
37 On recent proposed changes in England and Wales, see Martha Derthick & Paul J. Quirk, The Politics of Deregulation (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1985); Steve Lohr, “British Law Profession Jolted by Plan for Drastic Overhaul,”N.Y. Times, Jan. 30, 1989, at 1.Google Scholar
38 Powell, , 64 Soc. Forces at 281 (cited in note 27).Google Scholar
39 For a superb study of relations between the state, a legal profession, and changing technology in France, see Ezra Suleiman, Private Power and Centralization in France: The Notaires and the State (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987).Google Scholar
40 John Hagan, Marie Huxter, & Patricia Parker, “Class Structure and Legal Practice,” 22 Law & Soc'y Rev. 9 (1988). On employment in the United States, see Eve Spangler, Lawyers at Work (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 1986).Google Scholar
41 Larson, Rise of professionalism xvii-xviii (cited in note 3).Google Scholar
42 Suzanne Weaver, Decision to Prosecute (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1979).Google Scholar
43 R. Shep Melnick, Regulation and the Courts (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1983).Google Scholar
44 Robert Kagan, Regulatory Justice (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1980) (“Kagan, Regulatory Justice”).Google Scholar
45 Robert Nelson, following a disagreement approach to independence, has a thoughtful discussion of the difficulties of evaluating independence in Partners with Power 257–59 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) (“Nelson, Partners with Power”).Google Scholar
46 Topsy Murray, Robert Dingwall, & John Eekelaar, “Professionals in Bureaucracies: Solicitors in Private Practice and Local Government,” in Robert Dingwall & Philip Lewis, The Sociology of the professions (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983) (“Dingwall & Lewis, Sociology”).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
47 James Eisenstein, Roy B. Flemming, & Peter F. Nardulli, The Contours of Justice: Communities and Their Courts (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988).Google Scholar
48 Abel, 229–32. See Burton Lehman, “When the Law Becomes Big Business,”N.Y. Times, Feb. 5, 1989, at 2. For a discussion of recent changes in the United States, see Gilson, Ronald J. & Mnookin, Robert H., “Coming of Age in a Corporate Law Firm: The Economics of Associates' Career Patterns,” 41 Stan. L. Rev. 567 (1989); “The Law Firm as a Social Institution: A Symposium,” 37 Stan. L. Rev. 271 (1985). Other work that analyzes aspects of corporate law practice includes John Hagan, Marie Huxter, & Patricia Parker, “Class Structure and Legal Practice: Inequality and Mobility Among Toronto Lawyers,” 22 Law & Soc'y Rev. 9 (1988); Nelson, Partners with Power. For the early 20th century, see Gawalt, G., ed., The New High priests: Lawyers in Post-Civil War America (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984), and Robert Gordon, “Legal Thought and Legal Practice in the Age of American Enterprise, 1870–1920,”in Geison, Professions (cited in note 5).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
49 John P. Heinz & Edward O. Laumann, Chicago Lawyers (New York: Russell Sage Foundation; American Bar Foundation, 1982); Donald D. Landon, “LaSalle Street and Main Street: The Role of Context in Structuring Law Practice,” 22 Law & Soc'y Rev. 213 (1988).Google Scholar
50 Keith Hawkins, Environment and Enforcement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). For a discussion of bureaucracies and deprofessionalization, see Terence Halliday, “Professions, Class and Capitalism,” 24 Archives Eur. Soc. 321 (1983).Google Scholar
51 Nelson, Robert and Heinz, John P. argue for the importance of the setting of employment in Washington practice. “Lawyers and the Structure of Influence in Washington,” 22 Law & Soc'y. Rev. 237, 254 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
52 See, e.g., Larson, Rise of Professionalism ch. 11 (cited in note 3).Google Scholar
53 Celia Davies, “Professionals in Bureaucracies: The Conflict Thesis Revisited.” in Dingwall & Philip Lewis, Sociology. Abel mentions the revisionist approach, pp. 26–28.Google Scholar
54 Cohen, Michael D., March, James G., & Olsen, Johan P., “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice,” 17 Admin Sci Q. 1 (1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
55 Kagan found no difference in how lawyers approached cases in the wage and price freeze and how nonlawyers did. Kagan, Regulatory Justice ch. 7 (cited in note 44).Google Scholar
56 Freidson, Professional Powers 158–66 (cited in note 34).Google Scholar
57 Terry Moe, “The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure,” in John E. Chubb & Paul E. Peterson, eds., Can the Government Govern? 273 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1989).Google Scholar
58 Freidson, Professional Powers ch. 7.Google Scholar
59 Jack Ladinsky noted this early in the study of the legal profession. Careers of Lawyers, Law Practice, and Legal Institutions,” Am. Soc. Rev. 47 (1963). On Daniel Webster's dependence on fees, see Botein, S., “Love of Gold and Other Ruling Passions: The Legal Papers of Daniel Webster,” 1985 Am. B. Found. Res. J. 217.Google Scholar
60 Abbott, , System of Professions 132 (cited in note 5).Google Scholar
61 Duman, English and Colonial Bars 206–7 (cited in note 15).Google Scholar
62 David Vogel, National Styles of Regulation (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), addresses the structure of the administrative process.Google Scholar
63 Lewis outlines these issues in Abel & Lewis, The Common Law World ch. 1.Google Scholar
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